Doesn't the Bay Area have enough good hardcore bands? It's like they grow them on trees, or breed them in those large crates on the shipping docks. The truth may never be known, and I'm sure as hell not complaining; it's amazing to see these new bands playing music that strays away from the repetitive shit Trustkill profits off of these days. This demo dropped in just after a storm of unforgiving hardcore releases washed up on our CD player shores, with five songs played from the heart and lyrics to match. Demo2k5 is Time for Living's reawakening that'll make you throw your fist in the air, and maybe have you crawling up the sweaty back of your best friend just so you can get two words into that microphone.
'Rolling Bones' lays down the law with a lyrical gun including lines like 'this is what I love and all I know and I'll never walk from it,' and 'I don't give a fuck what you've been told, or what's been spread on messageboards, before you judge me you gotta think it through.' This verbal abuse is spread roughly across two and a half minutes of power-chord plagiarism. 'Rolling Bones' has its high points, but rough around the edges with repetitive guitar treatment.
Time for Living bring together elements from the worlds of hardcore-punk and metal into all of their songs. Songs like 'By the Code' and 'Say What?' blend together poppy punk friendly drum beats with double-bass onslaughts. It flows together nicely, and gives the songs more personality.
'We're caught in the same world with the same old story. It's our life, our love, our will, our way, our victory.' These words are still resonating in the back of my head two weeks after hearing 'And We'll do it Again.' This song is amazing, easily one of my favorite jams of 2005. It carries along a catchy riff and builds itself up to a flawless apex which obliterates itself with the lyrics prepared above. This song is a perfect example of why I got into hardcore in the first place.
Time for Living seal the deal with 'Threat Assessment,' a song that embellishes some of the more pissed off and emotionally driven lyrics on the demo. However, 'Threat Assessment' doesn't hit me as hard as 'And We'll do it Again.' This song sounds like it's dragging a lazy attitude between its legs, as a result I found myself questioning the order of these songs. It's a decent song, but sounds diluted in its placement around everything else.
It's easy to get lost in a hardcore scene that is growing exponentially like the Bay Area's, but with Time for Living this won't be the case. What Demo2k5 doesn't bring to the table this time, Time for Living will make up for in the future. This is just a preview of what's to come, you can be sure of that.
